Bethesda, please fix the combat in the next Elder Scrolls game.

[hinti21]

The main thing that bothers me is the combat. Apart from the awful ragdolls and the clumsy character movement, the combat is so dull. No matter which melee weapon you're weilding, it feels like you're hitting your enemies with a baseball bat...and the worst thing is they dont even care.
For skyrim it is too late, but please do something about the combat in the next installation of the Elder Scrolls games.
Thanks.

[Mormacil]

We can hope and the next is most likely goin gto be better but I doubt it will a bigger step up from Skyrim them Skyrim was from Oblivion.

[itznadatumah]

I think the combat from Chivalry would be a huge improvement.

[Mormacil]

Nah that's be to 'hardcore'. It's stilla skillbased RPG, not an actiongame.

[itznadatumah]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Nah that's be to 'hardcore'. It's stilla skillbased RPG, not an actiongame.

No it's not. The combat in Skyrim is so lacking of skill, it's pathetic. It basically does the same thing as Chivalry, except without any depth.. It least take the better concepts from Chivaly and apply them to it.

[Dan]

Standing on a rock waiting for stamina regen is a skill. : /

[Panda]

Originally posted by Dan:

Standing on a rock waiting for stamina regen is a skill. : /

I've found that having Restoriation with the Respite perk is pretty much essential in every character. That way you just need to carry around Magicka potions for the most part.

[Taiwan Number One]

I wouldn't expect it to change as it's always been this way. That and Skyrim proves Bethesda wants to appeal to a larger audience so skill based combat would go against that.

[Panda]

Originally posted by Steve Saint James:

I wouldn't expect it to change as it's always been this way. That and Skyrim proves Bethesda wants to appeal to a larger audience so skill based combat would go against that.

That's a very simplistic argument.

I haven't played Chivalry so I couldn't say anything about that but the best combat system I've played is hand-to-hand from Sleeping Dogs.

The larger issue I see here is there seems to be no graceful way to have a combat system that works great in both third- and first-person and I believe this even more with the release of that first-person mod for Sleeping Dogs. It made hand-to-hand combat, which is the best feature of that game, impossible.

This is something to take into consideration when comparing the battle system to some other game. I'm sure there's a way to make it work but I don't think anyone has found it yet.

[WeaselBiggs]

I don't know how they could fix it, honestly.

On the one hand, archery is hard to screw up. Arrow leaves bow, arrow travels along a parabolic arc, arrow hits target or misses if arc stretches too far. The End.

In the case of Medieval weaponry, a more realistic approach would more or less involve nuking the vanilla attack animations and making the power strikes default. That would make timing a crucial concept, but it would also slow down gameplay. There's also the fact that nobody's exactly figured out how to make a character react to a sword swing realistically. The move needs to visibly complete if the opponent isn't blocking, and some form of damage needs to be generated. The only way to do that is to make the weapon do a clear sweep just in front of the opponent and somehow log that as a hit. As is the case in Skyrim.

Going Arkham might solve the problem, but a two-button combat system would also feel too simplistic for some people. The devs would have more freedom in terms of contact animations, but they'd have to nix first-person gameplay entirely.

[Panda]

Originally posted by WeaselBiggs:

Going Arkham might solve the problem, but a two-button combat system would also feel too simplistic for some people. The devs would have more freedom in terms of contact animations, but they'd have to nix first-person gameplay entirely.

Taking out first-person would be a larger ♥♥♥♥-storm than the current combat system, methinks. :-/

There's a mod for better combat but I haven't tried it so I dunno.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36006/?

[Mormacil]

The thing is that the system needs to be confined to first person, at least workable in it. So yeah that enables Chivalry and a system akin to it or Dark Messiah might work. However the series is still built on the fact that skills/levels let you survive regardless of playerskill. TO an extent of course and I doubt they would move away from this.

Originally posted by Dan:

Standing on a rock waiting for stamina regen is a skill. : /

Never done this.

[hinti21]

Originally posted by WeaselBiggs:

I don't know how they could fix it, honestly.

Well, for a start they could make a sword feel like a sword by for example being able to actually cut opponents -> if I swing my two-hander at someones feet he shouldn't be able to chase after me at full speed and then make a jump attack on my head, or if i swing a mace at someones head (who is not waering a helmet) he should be lying on the floor, not stabbing me with his dagger^^

[Panda]

Originally posted by hinti21:

Originally posted by WeaselBiggs:

I don't know how they could fix it, honestly.

Well, for a start they could make a sword feel like a sword by for example being able to actually cut opponents -> if I swing my two-hander at someones feet he shouldn't be able to chase after me at full speed and then make a jump attack on my head, or if i swing a mace at someones head (who is not waering a helmet) he should be lying on the floor, not stabbing me with his dagger^^

I haven't seen a game with realistic decapitations. Besides, how many times did you get cleanly cut by a sword or bashed by a warhammer? Playing as a left-handed one-handed swordsman is incredibly immersive, I guess, but a warhammer to the head should also mean an insta-kill to he player, no?

[Ilja]

Originally posted by hinti21:

Well, for a start they could make a sword feel like a sword by for example being able to actually cut opponents -> if I swing my two-hander at someones feet he shouldn't be able to chase after me at full speed and then make a jump attack on my head, or if i swing a mace at someones head (who is not waering a helmet) he should be lying on the floor, not stabbing me with his dagger^^

You are doing a mistake between RPG genres here. TES-series is part of Hack and Slash genre. It takes it's inspiration from popular tabletop RPGs, like Dungeons and Dragons. It follows the hit point damage model, familiar from classical Infinity Engine games.

I do not agree with you. There is nothing wrong or broken in the TES-series combat, from the part we are now discussing. It is a part of the very popular genre and moving it to another direction is certain way to make a good part of current players to turn their backs on the series.

I personally like other damage types as well. It is nice to have combat against more fragile characters with locational damage, as far as my own character "lives" by these same rules. I also like the very fantasy themed Hack and Slash theme that TES-series represents. Variety is good: different games for different days. Because of that, I would hate to see the current theme to go away.

[hinti21]

Originally posted by Panda:

Originally posted by hinti21:

Well, for a start they could make a sword feel like a sword by for example being able to actually cut opponents -> if I swing my two-hander at someones feet he shouldn't be able to chase after me at full speed and then make a jump attack on my head, or if i swing a mace at someones head (who is not waering a helmet) he should be lying on the floor, not stabbing me with his dagger^^

I haven't seen a game with realistic decapitations. Besides, how many times did you get cleanly cut by a sword or bashed by a warhammer? Playing as a left-handed one-handed swordsman is incredibly immersive, I guess, but a warhammer to the head should also mean an insta-kill to he player, no?

Yep, it does.
When I swing my sword its like it goes through the enemy and he doesnt even recognize it...that somehow breaks the immersion for me.

@Ilja: I guess its a matter of taste.